When I first received the news this year that my parents were looking to move I didn’t really think much of it. They had talked about moving in the past and nothing ever came of it. Then while walking around Target one day my mother called me. She began asking me all these questions about what she could and couldn’t throw away of mine. Confused and annoyed, I told her to just wait until I was back home to go through my room.

“We can’t wait, we are putting the house on the market and starting showings next week.” Shocked, I was like okay, when were you exactly going to tell me this? When the house was sold? Further to my amazement, she then proceeded to tell me that they were putting a bid on a new house that week. I had no idea they had even found a house.

Still thinking everything would take some time; I wasn’t worried about moving into a new house. However, later that week I received another call from my mother that the owners accepted their bid and would be taking the title of the new house in May. I couldn’t believe it; all of a sudden I wouldn’t be going home to, well, my home. Rather, it would just be some house.

I knew that with growing older, I would have to say bye to a lot of things I knew and loved. But, there is just something about having to say goodbye to your childhood home that’s like nothing else. We had never moved when I was growing up, so saying goodbye to a place you knew backwards and forwards for 21 years is tough.

No one ever really tells you about the things that seem so natural growing up are the things that are sometimes the hardest. Feelings of familiarity and comfort are difficult to give up. Remembering all the Christmas’s, Thanksgiving’s, family movie nights, and other amazing memories are now suddenly disappearing.

I can remember learning how to ride my bike in my backyard, or watching my dog’s first interaction with snow. You don’t really realize that these experiences are something that you want to hold on to for as long as you can until it's too late. I’m going to miss the way it felt to wake up on Saturdays with my brother and rush downstairs to watch cartoons. Or, how we get home from school and drop our backpacks in the family room, while our mom proceeded to yell at us to move them.

As I write this article, I am sitting in our family room for one of the last times I will get to. The sun is shining brightly through our sunroom while it creeps into the family room. My dog is lounging in the chair across from me, trying to keep his eyes open. I can hear my dad in the kitchen next to me making his coffee and flipping through the pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Thank you home, for providing me with the security and stability I needed growing up. Also, thank you parents for providing this home to me. I hope that when I grow up and have a family I will be able to have and give the same feelings.